


hollow map

by oculata



Series: the beginning of forever [13]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 10x09, Canon Compliant, Episode Related, Gap Filler, M/M, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22169890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oculata/pseuds/oculata
Summary: Mickey and Ian try to navigate their breakup.(10x09 fill-in fic)
Relationships: Ian Gallagher & Liam Gallagher, Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Mickey Milkovich & Byron Koch
Series: the beginning of forever [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1524932
Comments: 14
Kudos: 98





	hollow map

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this took longer than usual—i was trying to decide what direction to take this in.

Mickey had been heartbroken before. He knew the pain of being left alone by the person he loved and trusted most, but he felt like things were different this time. They were adults, there was no one breathing down their necks about who they were, and for the first time ever, everything was as close to normal as it could have been. They were enjoying the luxuries of being a happy, stable couple who bickered about laundry and breakfast before they settled into bed to hold each other’s hands and press their warm bodies together at night. It all felt so different, like they actually had a chance to do everything they’d silently dreamed of years earlier. He could see it in Ian, too—Mickey knew he loved the normalcy and domesticity of it all.

And that was why Mickey’s head was spinning. He could feel the rage boiling inside of him, sending shocks of anger to his skin and making his ears feel so hot that he could sense the coolness of the air around him. And yet, as much as he tried to stay angry, at the risk of slipping into a far more dire and uncontrollable emotion, he couldn’t. He found himself flipping between all-consuming rage, betrayal, dread, and loneliness, and he noticed how the sway of his body changed and how differently his molecules seemed to orient themselves depending on the emotion he was experiencing.

Mickey kept his eyes fixed on his shoes, watching how his toes flailed about under the thick, rigid fabric when the intensity of his feelings peaked. But despite his best attempts, he could still see Ian fucking Gallagher’s unharmed leg moving around uncomfortably under the hospital bed’s sheet. Evidently, the cascade of emotions Mickey was exhibiting, no matter how minuscule the manifestations, made Ian jump with anxiety. And it wasn’t like the silence, which sat atop them like a goddamn metal plate, or the sterility of the hospital room were helping things.

“Mickey,” Ian blurted out. When Mickey looked up, his vision a little bleary, even Ian looked surprised that he’d said anything.

Mickey tried to respond, but when his mouth would begin to open, he found his chin and bottom lip were trembling so much that his lips would magnetize back together.

“Mickey,” Ian repeated, a little softer. Mickey saw Ian’s fingers inch toward him before halting and curling into his palm, his body seeming to shrink into itself as he remembered that things between him and Mickey were irreversibly different.

Mickey couldn’t find his voice to prompt anything further even though he could see Ian was almost nonverbally begging him to do so, what with his downcast eyes, stiff hand, and words so clearly lodged in his throat.

“Mickey,” he said again, hoping that his uttering the name would give him the grounding he needed. He exhaled a shaky breath. “Look, I just think we need more time to talk about what we’re—”

Mickey’s eyes shot open, and he felt his breath stumble through his nose as it raced to cool his split open heart.

“You wanna fucking talk?” he said, his voice low, hoarse, and broken.

Ian tried to be delicate in both tone and diction. “You were right. It’s a big step, and I think we should—”

“You fucking know how I feel,” he spit out, standing from the chair so fast that he saw dark blurs in his vision and felt his head go fuzzy.

“Mickey,” Ian pleaded as he leaned his torso over in an attempt to get closer to the man. He stopped moving when a wince escaped his lips due to a pain shooting through his leg.

“Fuck,” Mickey sobbed when he felt the tears well up in his eyes all over again. He sprinted to the hospital curtain, threw it open, and almost knocked into the doctor walking outside as he tried to flee before even more bad shit could happen. He mumbled a half intelligible apology before tumbling his way towards the nearest exit.

Mickey had been heartbroken before, but he had never been so devastated that he didn’t even feel like himself. And, at that moment, he couldn’t even find it in himself to care.

* * *

If someone had told Mickey that in only a week he would be sitting in a gay club in Boystown, actively searching for someone who was attractive enough to look at for the night, he would have laughed and proceeded to tell his boyfriend about how absurd the situation sounded.

He probably would’ve laughed even harder if they had told him that the club he was situated in was only a few doors down from where said boyfriend used to be an underage dancer.

He was sitting on a slick plastic bench against the wall of the club, surveying the crowd for whoever the fuck caught his eye. The alcohol in his system gave him a laser focus on his task while also numbing all the unpleasantness that had been plaguing his sober mind. Still, though, nothing felt like enough for him. He’d had a few conversations that fizzled out either because the guy just wasn’t engaging enough or they had some physical defect that Mickey couldn’t overlook—one man’s hair was a stupid, outrageous color, the other had a busted nose, and another had hands so small that Mickey almost pitied the guy. So he stayed on the bench, surveying the bustling bodies on the dancefloor before him, watching the tops of their heads bob around in the purple light as they spilled drinks on their friends and laughed up a storm over the booming music, trying to tease apart who he could possibly fancy enough to approach. 

He was so drunk and kept getting so lost in his dazed mission that he found himself nearly sliding off the smooth bench and onto the club's floor multiple times. That annoyance, combined with his general vexation of the club’s attendees not fitting the type of fuck he had in mind, had him nearly seething in his seat. He was about ready to latch onto the first rando he ran into—just desperate to release the pent up energy and frustration vested within him in any way—when a small crowd of similarly sized men, all giggly and touching each other, floated over to the bench. He was immediately transfixed by the group, but by no one man in particular. They were all decent looking enough, and he liked watching them put their hands over each other’s chests and arms. When he realized he was probably staring for longer than was socially acceptable, he averted his gaze back to the gaggle on the dancefloor, not so covertly peeking out from the corner of his eye to the men beside him, hoping that one or two would linger longer than the others.

He got his wish because the group subsequently broke up—two men heading for the exit, one hobbling towards the bathroom, two more disappearing into the crowd—while the single remaining member of the party turned towards the bench, swiped off some imagined debris, and sat down. He promptly took out and got lost in his phone. Mickey eyed him closely, seeing how the white of the screen blasted his pale skin and red hair to life, how straight his back was, and the way his face was chiseled. Instinctively, Mickey spread his legs further apart and puffed up his chest.

He would do.

Mickey slid a little closer. “Hey,” he purred at the man, hoping his voice would carry over to him despite the music.

The man heard him and was a bit startled by the interruption. He looked over at Mickey, his expression a bit scornful, but it quickly softened when he processed the dewy, hooded eyes, which had blue irises that seemed to glow under the intense violet light, looking up at him.

“Well, hello there. What’s your name?” he wondered, looking pleased as hell to see Mickey next to him.

“‘S Mickey,” he slurred, raking his eyes over the man’s features, studying him. He had an expression that made it seem like he was comparing the man to some paradigm. The man watched the way Mickey’s gaze seemed to draw lines between his eyes, nose, lips, brows, and chin. He waited for Mickey to return the inquiry regarding his name, but when it didn’t come after a while, he decided to offer the information himself, assuming that Mickey was too drunk to remember his pleasantries.

“I’m Byron,” he said, gesturing to his own chest as the words, which sounded bizarrely regal, drifted out of his mouth. Mickey’s eyes followed the motion of his hand before returning to his face. He tongued the corner of his mouth and let out a little moan of acknowledgment.

As a tense silence of confusing origin descended upon them again, Byron decided to speak up.

“So what brings you here tonight, Mickey?” he asked with an arch of his brow and intrigued tilt of his head. He could sense that Mickey was in the club for something very specific.

“Some fucking prick,” Mickey answered, the poison in his tone rather evident. He felt the same thoughts he was trying to escape from earlier pry their way to the surface again, and so he altered his approach by adopting a slightly softer, more lustful tone when he returned the question. “‘Bout you?”

“Friends,” he said. He gestured to the empty air around him when he continued, “But, clearly, I’m alone now.”

“Well, in that case then,” Mickey began, trailing off as the man’s name already escaped him. To make up for the lapse in memory, he only slid closer to Byron, smirking when the man mirrored his motion. “Where you wanna go?”

* * *

“Hey, uh,” Lip called out through the accordion door, jiggling it around a bit as he hoped the noise would get Ian’s attention. “You alright, man?”

Ian grunted.

“You sure? You don’t need any help goin’ to the bathroom or anything?” Lip tried again.

“Yep,” Ian responded with a huff.

Lip stood outside the door for another moment before Ian heard him let out a quiet sigh, followed by footsteps that echoed throughout the hall as he walked away.

Ian sighed and turned his head, the tip of his nose immediately hitting the fabric of Mickey’s pillow. He nuzzled the fabric gently before pressing his nose in more, trying to recreate the sensation and consuming feeling that he got when he and Mickey were tangled together in bed and his nose was buried in Mickey’s hair or neck. The smell was obviously identical, but the feeling was anything but. The scent would sink into him, flooding his lungs with familiarity and comfort, and for as long as Ian’s eyes were closed, he could pretend. But the second he opened his eyes and was reacquainted with reality, he would be hit with the same sense of longing and loneliness that had sat atop him every second since Mickey left. He felt like he was wilting.

He was scared to touch the pillow too much. For how much he wished he could hold it close and become one with its scent, he was terrified that the smell would dissipate and be replaced with his own before Mickey and him could reconcile. But, despite how careful he would be, whenever he napped or slept, he would awake with the pillow in his clutches. He’d curse himself and remind himself of the importance of rationing, but it seemed that Mickey’s pillow was something of a beacon for him.

He took turns between watching the closet and looking out the window—the former because something about the organization of their clothes just looked _different_ , and he was trying to place whatever the discrepancy was. And he was watching the latter because he hoped he’d see Mickey coming up the street to their house, and the nightmare would end.

But Mickey never came home. In fact, Ian didn’t see him for a couple days, despite Liam informing him that he had seen Mickey in short intervals, running up the stairs without a word to anyone before quickly disappearing once again. Ian just seemed to never be around at the right time.

He was starting to wonder if he would ever see Mickey again.

It was the night before the morning when Ian and Mickey finally saw each other again, and Ian was trying to get to sleep, once again getting lost in the shadows of their closet when the realization finally dawned upon him—the closet was getting emptier.

* * *

Mickey hadn’t spent even a hundred hours with Byron, and he was already losing his fucking mind listening to his shitty, mellow music that was so devoid of any substance that Mickey was of the belief that listening to silence would have been more worthwhile. Byron also talked about the most _uninteresting_ shit imaginable, so much so that Mickey couldn’t keep the thread of conversation in his head for longer than ten seconds. Byron was a fucking bore, but he was cute enough and had a nice head of red hair, and eventually Mickey remembered that he could just keep the guy perpetually on his knees if he wanted some silence.

Mickey was crashing at his childhood home as he tried to figure out a more permanent living situation, but just sleeping in that dump was getting to be too much for him. When Byron picked him up from the residence early in the morning, Mickey damn near saw that teal vespa transform into a carriage that would be taking him to his castle.

Byron insisted that he knew “just the loveliest little açaí place”, and when they sat down at the table, Mickey decided to make his move.

“‘Ey, Barry,” he began, pushing the banana slices on the surface of his açaí bowl around with his fork. Byron glanced up at him, looking intrigued with whatever Mickey had to say because Mickey hardly ever seemed like he wanted to talk to him. “So, I’m thinkin’ it’d be real great for both of us if I left some of my shit at your place.”

Byron choked on his tongue. “W—well, Mickey, I think we’ve just known each other f—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but I’m just feelin’ like,” Mickey began around a mouthful of açaí and chia seeds, “so much shit for you, man. Think it’d be good for whatever we got goin’ on.”

“Well, yes, but I’m—”

“It’d be great,” Mickey said with conviction, waving his hand around in the air as if the motion were washing away all of Byron’s concerns. “Like I said, man.” He pointed to his chest, somewhat near his heart, with his fork. “So much shit.”

“I guess we could, but I—”

“Great!” he belted out, his expression looking pleased as hell. “We just gotta stop by this other place I was stayin’ at.”

Byron’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly as he watched Mickey chew with a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm. He could see Mickey’s eyes were pointed right at him, but it felt like the man was looking through him instead. He folded his hands together and just nodded, figuring that whatever Mickey’s deal was would materialize before him sooner or later because there was no fucking way Mickey was running from something that was anything less than insanely theatrical in its intensity and circumstance.

“Oh!” Mickey uttered suddenly before shoving another spoonful into his mouth, even though Byron could see whatever Mickey was about to say had been sitting on his mind the entire time. “If some, like, skinny redheaded mother fucker sees us, you better climb onto my dick without a second thought.”

With his lips parted, completely prepared for a gasp to escape from them, Byron nodded. This was certainly going to be interesting, he thought.

* * *

The rest of breakfast was different from their usual dynamic—Mickey seemed far more chipper and almost excited about something. He kept urging Byron to eat faster, and when Byron suggested stopping by an art exhibit before they went to get the clothes, Mickey rolled his eyes so hard that he momentarily thought a demon who was allergic to annoyance possessed him. He convinced Byron that they had to get his things immediately, and so they were off.

When they pulled up to the light blue house, Mickey was uncharacteristically giddy and touchy. However, Byron noticed that in split second intervals, his mask would slip, and Mickey would become stone faced as he looked up at the second story window before quickly flipping back to the far too animated version of himself.

Apparently, something in the window eventually caught his eye, because in the middle of Byron’s sentence, Mickey placed his hands on Byron’s cheeks and pulled them in close together. The kiss was awkward, and their lips were hardly touching if they were honest, but it went on until there was the sound of a shutting front door and the clumsy hobbling of crutches. That was when Mickey’s eyes shot open, and he pulled off, ready to greet their visitor.

* * *

Mickey felt like he had fully asserted himself in Byron’s prissy little apartment. He found his new bed so comfy and relaxing that, the second he laid down on it and felt those Egyptian cotton sheets against his naked chest and legs, he was out like a light despite the horrified-looking, gobsmacked Byron standing before him.

He woke up hours later to the sound of the band that he was growing to detest more and more with each new chord. If he was being entirely truthful, the band itself wasn’t half bad—it was the way Byron raved about them, sounding like simultaneously the most boring and most grating music critic ever, harping on and on about how unknown the band was and how a mainstream audience would fail to understand the method of their artistry. What-fucking-ever.

He grunted as he surfaced to reality, the bright light of the lamp beside him making his eyes feel like they were bleeding. He rolled over onto his back and was surprised to see Byron sitting beside him, flipping through a book.

“The fuck?” he asked, gesturing at Byron’s form. His voice sounded gravelly.

Byron looked over and gave him a little wave. “Good morning, Mickey honey.”

Mickey grimaced at where Byron was sitting but decided to pursue the avenue later once he was more awake. He fully flopped onto his back with a sigh and shut his eyes, hoping that the light seeping in through his eyelids would be enough to adjust him to the luminescence of the room.

Byron tilted his head to look at the words scrawled across Mickey’s chest. He knit his brows together, struggling to see anything but a jumble of letters. “What’s that say?”

Mickey laughed humorlessly. “Fuckin’ nothing.”

Byron at first tried to impose the phrase 'fuckin' nothing’ onto the words, but then the sarcasm in Mickey’s words jumped out at him. He closed his book, set it on his lap, and waited for Mickey to expand—because he was absolutely certain Mickey was itching to explain.

“Says ‘Ian Gallagher’,” Mickey sighed, reaching a hand up to scratch the letters.

Huh. “Who’s that?”

“Some fucking clown who broke my heart.” Mickey’s eyes fluttered open, and he sat up against the headboard with his head turned to Byron. “Basically left me at the fucking altar and goes off on some shit about how he doesn’t get why that was fucked up, then has the fuckin’ nerve to ask me what it is I like about him. Fuck’s sake, I broke out of and then went _back_ to prison for the guy, and he’s _still_ questionin’ if I wanna stick around for a while? Holy fuck, man, I just don’t get it because after everythin’ we’ve…”

This situation was far deeper than Byron could have ever expected, and Mickey spent the next hour and a half spitting it out at him, unwilling to let Byron interject with clarifying questions as he ranted and raved until Byron could practically see the steam emanating from Mickey’s heated skin and his outrage staining the walls.

* * *

Liam’s slow perusing of the various calculators hanging off the wall at Office Max left Ian a lot of time to sit in the office furniture section to rest his leg and ponder. The particular office chair he had chosen to sit on was a two-piece set, and he was resting his injured leg on the companion ottoman while the other mindlessly swiveled the chair from side to side. He turned over the two rings he had just bought in his palm, dragging his finger along the smooth surface of one of them. He passed the rings between each hand, listening to the tinny, ringing sound that the metal made as the rings clinked together.

He slumped back in the chair with a sigh. The situation between him and Mickey was complicated. He loved Mickey—had been in love with him for nearly a decade—but something in him couldn’t handle the permanence of marriage. And it wasn’t necessarily because he didn’t think he and Mickey couldn’t be together forever—they’d clearly demonstrated a resilience and bond and affection that transcended time, distance, and legality. It had more to do with his inability to trust himself and a degree of self-consciousness about his ability as a partner. Sure, they had been fine since Mickey came home from prison, but Ian felt like a ticking time bomb that only had so many seconds before he imploded. He felt like there was something so inherently wrong with his brain that it made him unlovable. Mickey had shown he was able to work with Ian’s disorder in the past, but even then the situation became so overwhelming and muddled that it nearly destroyed them. 

It had been so long since then, too. And even then, the whole situation had been terrible, what with him doing a bareback porn video, taking off with Yevgeny, the MPs coming after him, disappearing with Monica, their horrific breakup. What if the next time things got bad, they were worse? What if Mickey couldn’t handle it then, but he felt like he couldn’t leave because of some legal tie and a feeling of obligation? He’d seen what that feeling of unquestionable obligation had done to Frank and Monica, how the ramifications of their twisted union shattered a whole family. Ian couldn’t put Mickey through that. He loved Mickey endlessly, and the idea of not being able to set Mickey free if things got bad because of legalities terrified him. He didn’t want to force Mickey to stay and endure him.

Liam waved a calculator package in front of his face and knocked him from his musings. He looked up at his brother quickly, and Liam was holding up two different calculators.

“I need some advice,” he started. “The Casio one is cheaper, but the screen looks like the ones on blood pressure monitors. The TI one is really nice, but it’s almost fifty bucks more.”

Ian looked between the two briefly before shrugging. “It’s on Aunt Oopie,” he reminded Liam.

Liam nodded with satisfaction and went back to the wall to return the Casio calculator. When he returned, he found Ian staring longingly at the rings in his hand again, tracing a fingertip along the edge of one.

Liam watched him for a moment, looking at how his sad eyes drooped and how his mouth quirked into a frown. He sighed and pulled up one of the other office chairs alongside his brother. Ian seemed to be lost in his thoughts again, so Liam was a little louder than usual when he spoke in an effort to capture his attention.

“I don’t really remember Mickey too much,” Liam stated, and at the mention of Mickey’s name, Ian’s head shot up to look at him. “But from what I do remember, he seemed to really care about you. Spent a lot of time at the house. And you guys seemed really happy now.”

Ian exhaled a breath that had been occupying his whole chest. “Yeah.”

“And I know he did a lot for you, too. So you guys could be together and whatnot.”

Ian nodded. “He did.”

“So why’re you scared to do this? It sounds like the guy is willing to do a lot for you.”

Ian swallowed the lump in his throat. “Because,” his voice was slightly hoarse, “being with me doesn’t mean just one thing. It means all this other, like, fucking trash, and I don’t wanna put him through that.”

Liam folded his hands in his lap as he turned over Ian’s words in his head. He was silent for a moment. When he looked up at Ian, his brother’s face and eyes were tinted red.

“I think,” he began, his tone rather cautious. “That… Mickey knows who you are. And he’s okay with that person.”

“But what if he finds someone else? Someone who he doesn’t just have to be ‘okay’ with?” Ian asked. “What if he finds someone who he loves more than me because they’re just _easier_ to be with?”

Liam gnawed the inside of his cheek. “I don’t think Mickey wants that.”

Ian exhaled a shuddering sigh, not entirely convinced of what Liam was saying but intrigued enough by the inquiry to keep it in mind for a while. He looked back at the rings in his palm and ran his fingers over them.

“Did you find that person?” Liam asked after a bit.

Ian looked back at his brother and furrowed his brows in question.

“Like, someone who’s easier to be with than Mickey,” he clarified. “Have you ever found someone who you loved more than him?”

Ian stared off into the aisles of office supplies and mountains of copy paper, trying to remember a time when Mickey wasn’t in his life and how he felt. It all seemed so far away, like it was from a different timeline or on a different planet. He barely even remembered the kind of person he was back then.

“I don’t really know if anyone’s ever even come close.” His voice was soft, lost in his throat. He paused. “They were all just people who felt like they _had_ to be there so that space of a boyfriend wasn’t empty.”

Liam nodded. “It sounds like you love him a lot.”

Ian turned to him, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“I do.”

* * *

Mickey felt, honest to God, insulted. As he ascended back up to Byron’s apartment, putting more and more space between Ian, who he knew was still standing on the other side of that glass door watching him walk away, he felt his blood heating up. Not so much in anger, but more in frustration with the situation and Ian’s apprehension. Each subsequent step made him feel hotter. He was nearly at the top when his feet seemed to leaden, and he became anchored to the staircase. Then his body started shaking, and he felt trickles run down his cheeks. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes hard and leaned over until he thunked against the wall.

It didn’t make sense to him. After everything he had done, Ian was still questioning his devotion? He understood that there was something deeply rooted within Ian to make him think those things and that it certainly wasn’t something backed by rational reasoning, but the fact that this sentiment was so ingrained into Ian only made Mickey feel worse. He felt powerless. If his general patience and understanding, coming out, and escaping from and returning to prison wasn’t enough to convince Ian that he was worthy of love, he wasn’t sure what would. And it was heartbreaking.

He now understood that Ian himself had to come to the realization that he was worthy of companionship and that a legal union didn’t change the dynamic of their relationship. He couldn’t keep begging Ian to let him love him.

The storm in his mind took a while to clear. Once it was mostly settled, he took out his phone and looked at his reflection, wiping away the lingering tears trapped in his eyes. His feet finally felt lighter, and he finished his climb up the stairs.

When he opened the apartment door, he was surprised to see Byron on the bed, happily folding Mickey’s clothes with the trash bag from earlier next to his feet. Byron looked up at Mickey with joy, but it quickly slipped off his face when he saw how grim Mickey’s posture and expression was.

“Fuck are you doing on my bed?” Mickey rasped.

Byron was wide eyed as Mickey approached. “ _JesusfuckingChrist_ ,” he exclaimed under his breath.

Mickey’s face twisted up in confusion, and Byron quickly shuffled off the bed. Once he did, Mickey flopped down onto it.

“Maybe fold that shit for me,” he said, voice muffled by the comforter.

Byron was far too shocked to protest.

**Author's Note:**

>  _big_ thank you to these anons on my [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/clennam) who contributed to this story:
> 
> "I want a fill in of Mickey directly after that last scene :( also a fill in of how Mickey even met Byron"
> 
> "I'd love a fill-in conversation between liam and ian about ian's relationship with Mickey when they're buying the rings. Liam should totally have memories of mickey at least from season 4/5 and could ask ian if he's ever been in love with anyone else."
> 
> "I don't know if this is your kind of thing but I'd love a fill in fic of Mickey and Byron meeting and how that somehow led to Byron immediately letting Mickey move in lol. Alternatively whatever Mickey and Byron were doing in the apartment until Ian showed up (and how Byron learnt his name lol)"


End file.
